Microsoft Pushes Unlicensed Spectrum Carve-Out
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/7/2006 3:01:00 AM
A Microsoft executive was in Washington Tuesday making the company's pitch that Congress set aside some of the "white space" spectrum between TV channels in the broadcast band for smart radios and other unlicensed wireless devices.
In a hearing on rural telecommunications in the Senate Commerce Committee, Craig Mundie, chief technical officer, advanced strategies and policy, for the computer giant, argued that opening up the broadcast band to unlicensed devices would be a lower-cost alternative to expensive last-mile broadband hookups, particularly in remote areas (like Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens' home state of Alaska). As Mundie has told the committee previously, unlicensed technologies translate to high-speed data at a relatively low price.
One reason that the price is low is that the cost of entry is much less for services that operate in unlicensed spectrum than for, say, traditional wireless companies, who had to put up big bucks for spectrum licenses in FCC auctions.
Senator George Allen (R-Va.), who has introduced a bill to allow unlicensed devices in broadcast spectrum, also pointed to the low price, as well as to the fact that wireless more efficiently bridges distances--or "dirt between light bulbs," as he likes to say--and requires less digging up of city streets.
Saying Microsoft recognized the interference concerns of broadcasters, Mundie pointed out that the company supported rules that address that concern.
Mundie also pushed Congress to mandate network neutrality, or the ability of consumers to access any Internet site or use any device with a broadband Internet connection.
Two bills were introduced last month, one by Stevens and another by a group of Commerce Senators, including Allen, that would open white spaces to unlicensed devices.
Stevens said in introducing the bill that there is "more than 150 MHz of spectrum in Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii [committee co-chairman Daniel Inouye is from Hawaii), that could be used by unlicensed devices for wireless services," and as much as 50 mHz in large cities.
The Stevens bill would OK the manufacture of the devices for use in the broadcast band. The devices, which were touted by former FCC Chairman Michael Powell, "sense" and seek out unused spectrum on which to operate.
The Association of Maximum Service Television (MSTV), the spectrum-policy watchdog for broadcasters, has long expressed concern that the devices could cause interference to digital TVs, posing a potential impediment to the rollout out of the service just as viewers are starting to buy the sets.
It even produced and circulated a video on Capitol Hill last fall demonstrating the loss of a viewers' signal from a nearby laptop.
At the time of the demonstration, Michael Marcus, of Marcus Spectrum Solutions, a consultant to New America and former FCC associate chief of technology, said the MSTV test essentially used a loophole in the FCC proposal to create interference that a personal computer would be unlikely to ever produce.
The Stevens bill would try to guard against that interference by directing the FCC to set technical requirements of the devices and establish a complaint process for broadcasters if there is the kind of interference MSTV fears.
A similar bill, introduced by Senators George Allen (R-VA.), John Kerry (D-MA), John Sununu (R-NH) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), would also open up the spectrum to unlicensed devices, with interference-protection language.
Per a proceeding started under Powell, the FCC has also proposed opening the band to the devices, but it, too, starts with channel 5 to steer clear of cable set-top boxes, which generally operate on channels 3 and 4. That begs the question with some broadcasters: If the FCC and Stevens want to steer clear of interfering with cable set-tops, which don't use antennas, why are they willing to risk the interference to DTV reception?
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